Few themes in playwriting are as reliable as that of parents passing their fears, traits, customs and traditions down to their children. In capable hands, the opportunities for nostalgia and recriminations can be inexhaustible. James Sherman, who showed a sweet knack for Jewish family comedy with his Beau Jest, mines a slightly darker vein in this tale of three women and the choices they made. Arguments in the 1940s between the old-school Bessie (Anita Keal) and her daughter, Mary (Suzanne Toren), over marriage versus career, religion versus assimilation, are then echoed in the 1970s between Mary and her daughter (Sarah McCafrey), who ends up making some of the same mistakes -- but happily, she also has the spunk and wherewithal to reach an independence her ancestors never could. Sherman's script has its sitcom-level patches, but the heart is there, as are surprisingly boisterous laughs for what is essentially a melancholy memory play. Opening night showed the otherwise excellent Anita Keal missing a line or two and not always comfy with her Jewish accent. No such worries for the utterly convincing Toren and the delightful McCafrey, who seems poised, on the basis of her vibrant presence here, to relinquish the Brooklyn bartending job she mentions in her bio.
